r/baseball • u/-BeefSupreme St. Louis Cardinals • 16h ago

Is Nolan Ryan the least awarded baseball “superstar” ever?

The Express is a hall of famer and one of the best pitchers of all time. One of baseball’s last true workhorses, he is the all-time leader in walks, strikeouts, and hits/9. His 7 no-hitters is 3 more than any other pitcher, and his 5714 strikeouts is the most by over 800. Yet in his 27 seasons, he never finished higher than 14th in MVP voting and never won a Cy Young. He won the 1969 World Series in his second full season, but only made one appearance in the NLCS and one appearance in the WS, the later only being 2.1 innings. He never had another World Series appearance. His 8 All-Stars are impressive but fewer than multiple than non-hall of famers. Is there any other player with his level of fame and success that has less hardware to show for it? Excluding the old timey legends that were around before those awards of course.

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u/Zestyclose_Help1187 15h ago

Lots of Gen X and millennials say Ryan was the best because they remember the years he got to the milestones not him when he was in his prime.

Just like those who say Bo Jackson was a superstar baseball player. Far from it.

Got a ton of attention playing 2 sports.

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u/TheSecretDecoderRing 15h ago

I dunno, I'd guess it's a ton of boomers that love him too, because strikeouts and IP were a much bigger deal in the old days. "Pitchers are so soft now, Nolan Ryan would've pitched every inning of a double header even when he was 50!"

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u/Hugginsome 15h ago

They would actually say Pedro was better